Under grey skies, surrounded by 30 people, mostly media and local clergy, 205 indigent people were memorialized at Mount Olivet Cemetery Monday.

“There’s no doubt that the people we recognize here today experienced significant challenges in their lives,” David Fleming told the crowd. He is director and health officer for Public Health – Seattle and King County. “But they were sons and daughters, they had friends, lovers and people who loved them. King County is committed to ensuring a proper and respectful burial for them.”

The Indigent Remains Program has been run by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office since 1993, when it took over for the state. The program allows for the destitute and those with no next-of-kin to be cremated and properly buried.

Some indigent people are claimed by families after cremation. However, for those who are not, the deceased are stored at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office until a ceremony and burial can take place, usually about every two years.

To be eligible for the program, a 21-day next-of-kin search, notification and evaluation is conducted. The medical examiner’s office waits at least a year for the families to come forward to claim the deceased.

Some of the people are homeless, but some died in nursing homes without any relatives to take care of them, said Joseph Frisino, lead investigator in the medical examiner’s office.

About 250 people a year are supported by the program. This year 167 men and 38 women women were buried in individual containers and dedicated to a shared plot on the Friday before the Monday memorial service. The tomb reads “Gone but not forgotten these people of King County November 2010.”

Mary Larson is a nurse at the Pioneer Square Clinic. She came on Monday to pay tribute to former patient Teiry Ometh, whom she painted in 2001. She hadn’t seen Ometh in many years and it was a surprise to see him on the list of the departed.

She didn’t have any stories to share about him, but said, “I feel like just looking at his face it tells a story.” She held up a photograph of him and also presented the painting. Ometh died April 5, 2008.

Larson has been involved with the Indigent Remains Program for five years. She recognized 15 people on the list immediately because of her profession, often treating the homeless and destitute. She stays involved year after year because she says in this life “everybody makes a ripple.”

The multi-denominational ceremony featured prayers and remarks from eight area clergy. Linda Haptonstall, pastoral associate of St. Brendan Catholic Church, offered a prayer in Spanish because she thought some of the deceased might be of that descent. Rabbi James Mirel of B’nai Torah called out a Jewish prayer for all people. Pastor Kristy Daniels of Compass Housing Alliance read from an El Salvadoran priest’s message who spoke to the lonely, the forgotten and the outcast.